1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a wire feeding unit for feeding a welding wire to a welding torch, the welding wire being inserted through a torch cable that passes through an arm (also referred to as an arm member) of a welding robot and is connected to the welding torch.
2. Description of the Related Art
There is known a welding robot equipped with a multiarticular arm, a torch cable of which is passed from a base end portion of an upper arm through the inside of the upper arm and is connected to a welding torch provided at a tip portion of the upper arm, the torch cable accommodating a welding wire, an electrically conductive wire, and the like (refer to, for example, Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2006-150378).
In a welding robot like this, since a torch cable is not arranged around the upper arm, there is no fear that the torch cable comes into contact with a work piece or surrounding equipment when the multiarticular arm is pivoted or tilted.
Incidentally, the welding robot has a wire feeding unit fixed on a base end portion of the upper arm, the wire feeding unit serving to feed a welding wire to the welding torch. In the wire feeding unit, the welding wire is pinched between a pair of rollers and is fed toward the tip side of the upper arm by the rotation of the rollers.